


Mind Games

by mildred_of_midgard



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 20:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9201344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildred_of_midgard/pseuds/mildred_of_midgard
Summary: Denethor took the Ring. Faramir rebelled and was thrown into prison. Now Boromir must try to convince his father to spare his brother.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another AU I dug up from years ago. I was intending to flesh it out, but my Mags-verse series has completely taken over my life, so this is what you get.

"I see you are still loyal to your traitorous brother." Denethor didn't sound angry, but since the Ring had come into his hands, he never sounded angry, only dangerous. Danger, Boromir had learned, could strike out of nowhere.

With an effort, Boromir controlled his face and his nerves. "It is not a question of my loyalty to him, sir, but rather of his loyalty to me."

"His pretended loyalty, you mean. He will lure you in with your trust and strike like a snake."

 _Never. He can't._ Boromir could hardly put his certainty into words to his father, but he knew Faramir would never turn on him. He might think Boromir misguided, he might not take the prudent route of obedience simply because Boromir asked it of him, but he couldn't really, not _really_ , bring himself to hold Boromir responsible for serving their father. Rather he would blame Denethor for his hold on his elder son.

"Willing or not, he could still be a useful tool, more useful than imprisoned or-"

Denethor's eyes glittered, as he waited for Boromir to say the awful word, and even that blunt soldier couldn't bring himself to speak his greatest fear aloud. "-discarded."

The Steward was shaking his head. "He's cleverer than you, I'm sorry to say, and your trust of him will not be met in kind. If you refuse to believe he will turn on you, believe me at least when I say he will maneuver around you."

"Not if he is made to depend on me," Boromir insisted. "I can do this. I can make him serve your will."

"If I threaten with one hand, you mean, and you protect with the other." Denethor raised his eyebrows, turning that idea over in his mind. Boromir was sure his voice had never been quite so chilling before. "He is only a Man, it is true, and has his weaknesses like any other. I might consider your proposal, if I thought it came from any other source than a desire to keep him alive at all costs, and to appeal to my self-interest in doing so."

Boromir had been transparent to his father's penetrating mind all his life, and all the more so since Denethor began to wield the Ring, and so this quick perception of his motives did not faze him as it should have. He'd expected it, and come prepared with further arguments. "I have been to see him-'"

"I know it," Denethor interrupted sharply. "Don't think to keep such secrets from me."

"I make no effort to conceal anything from you, sir." Boromir bent his head and shoulders in a half-bow, formally yielding authority to the Steward. He knew secrecy was futile, and his only hope lay in swaying Denethor, not in deceiving him. Stubborn as a bull, he carried on. "I made trial of him there, and he thinks his martyrdom would serve the cause of discrediting you. No one could overthrow you, of course, but outward displays of loyalty and service from both your sons might be politic nonetheless."

"Quite the speech you've prepared." Denethor steepled his fingers under his chin, and it was with difficulty that Boromir met his unreadable gaze. "If I didn't know better, I'd say it came from the mouth of your brother, but he had no time to coach you in that brief meeting." They had been spied on, then, but both had been counting on it and said little that might incriminate themselves. "When did you learn such subtlety?"

Boromir bowed again to his father. "From the best, sir." For forty years, any influence with his father had come from gestures of submission and perfect straightforwardness beyond which Denethor did not look too deeply, joined with an absolute persistence.

"Well, well," spoke Denethor, "I risk nothing by permitting your little experiment. Coddle him if you like--yes, I know of the muffins--but if you flout my authority publicly, expect to be chastised, and understand this, Boromir." A hidden shiver ran down Boromir's back, unconnected to the fact that his father no longer required a fire be lit in any of his chambers. "If you join his cause, I will not hesitate to cut off my own right hand."

"You have my loyalty, sire, never doubt it." Boromir let a little fierceness show in his voice, counting on his father to take it as conviction rather than defiance.

A forty-year bond with his son weighed against the growing suspicions in Denethor's mind, and won--for now. "See that you give me no reason to."

* * *

Boromir trembled with relief and new tension leaving his father's private study. His first impulse was to find his way again to the room where Faramir was being held, but with a newly-acquired and poorly-fitting caution, he thought better of appearing too eager. Let his father see him as serious and absorbed in his many responsibilities, of which winning Faramir over was only one, and not the one nearest his heart.

 _Forgive me, brother,_ he thought in the direction that his footsteps would not take him today. _Forgive me for not coming sooner...and forgive me the half-measures I must take to free you at all._ For Denethor's plan, to weaken Faramir further so that he must depend all the more on his brother, was not one Boromir looked wholeheartedly forward to, for all that it came of his own suggestion.

A sword, an arrow, an open enemy, a clear conscience. That was Boromir's way, and he longed for it. Too long had he been kept in the city, since the foes of Gondor were driven back once and for all, and the mopping up was left to lesser generals. He served at his father's pleasure, but his father's pleasure was too devious for Boromir's tastes. These days he slept better amid the privations of the field than in the luxury of his own chambers.

How did Faramir sleep? he wondered, amid his own privations and conscience?

* * *

In truth, Faramir's captivity could have been much worse. As a high-ranking noble, he was kept in no dank cell full of dirty straw and rats, but merely in a starker version of his own bedchamber. A balance was kept between providing him with the necessities of life and not providing him with more materials for making into weapons than could be helped. No fire was lit in the grate, but blankets he had in plenty, and food, regular if poor, and enough furniture to spare him from sitting or lying on the stone floor.

As a noble awaiting trial for treason--was he awaiting trial? All the rules were changed now, and Faramir had no news of what passed in the world outside--he was expected upon his honor to be on his best behavior. By rights he should have been provided with still more harmless comforts, but Denethor had seen fit to deny him reading or writing materials, suspecting him, no doubt, of desiring to smuggle out manifestos.

Neither cold nor hungry nor in pain, he found his worst enemies were boredom, and still worse, fear. Fear of what would happen to him, of course, but greater fear of what passed in Gondor and Middle-earth beyond his ken. Fear that he'd wasted his chance at resistance so quickly, though he'd thought his plan over carefully and decided it worth the risk of early captivity or death. Fear that the Steward had indeed already imperceptibly become Dark Lord. Fear of--Faramir stopped his train of thoughts like a horse rearing up. He sought deeper inside him for calm and perseverance, summoning up philosophy, ancient stories of victory over evil and the great price to be paid therefor, and fragments of poetry to give him courage.

Fear that Denethor's darkness would overwhelm Boromir such that he no longer recognized his brother. For he knew what weaknesses Boromir was prey to.

He'd seemed his old self on the occasion when he'd sneaked to Faramir's door, if naturally in some disturbance of mind at visiting his brother in captivity, but that meeting had been so brief that Faramir could not read much of his mind. When Boromir departed, Faramir was left wishing he'd never come.

This brief contact with the world that continued to move on without him only roused in him a dozen unanswered questions. How did the war go, if Boromir was at home and not on campaign? When last Faramir saw the light of day, the Men of Gondor had the upper hand, but Sauron was still at large, weakened but in hiding and husbanding his strength. Questions concerning himself more personally reared their heads as well. Was Boromir in defiance of the Steward, to come up here? He must have been acting against orders, else he would have visited sooner. Was this a final visit permitted to him before the blow that was now to come?

Worst of all, kindness, affection, and unquestioning support without recrimination--all these had shattered Faramir's hard-won calm and left him again in turmoil. Wishing Boromir a thousand miles away from here, berating himself for treacherous thoughts that he would do anything just to have his brother back again for five minutes, nearly weeping over the simple gesture of a smuggled muffin.

Faramir sat again in his chair with its lean upholstering, determined to regain his equanimity. He was thankful that he was not being asked to do so in hunger or pain, for even he knew himself vulnerable to the weaknesses of flesh.

* * *

His gratitude was sorely tried, for the situation soon changed. He continued to be left alone in suspense, and he wondered desperately what Denethor meant to do with him. Was ignoring him the worst punishment he could devise, or the least risky to his own plans? What were the Lord Denethor's plans?

The guards were none too subtle when they began to make sport of him, and Faramir knew something had changed, though he could not know what. His bowl of gruel was no longer neatly set down, but tossed on the floor so that half of it slopped over the sides. Crude, he thought, to begin with food deprivation, and hardly original, but effective.

Nearly as bad, and as disruptive to his state of mind was the systematic lack of privacy. Knowing he was being watched was one thing, but he was now living without a single moment of reprieve from the stares of hostile guards, often with commentary. It was all the more important to show no cracks in his façade, but commensurately harder to meditate in search of that elusive inner calm.

Faramir began to worry that he might be easier to break than he'd guessed in his pride. _Whole families live in a single room,_ he reminded himself frantically. _I've endured more enforced company in the field. Solitude is a luxury, not a necessity._

He knew that it was a soothing lie: near-privacy could be granted by mutual consent among those forced to live or camp together. Eyes were averted and ears stopped, and anyone breaking custom as his guards did would be reprimanded.

Fearing the Steward was probing for weaknesses before the trial, while seeking to undermine his ability to give an effective speech in his defense--if that right had not been abrogated like so many others in the name of security--Faramir fought back with the one weapon he had: dignity. He made no complaints, cleaned up the mess from the floor, and ate it as neatly with as little desperation as he could, though it took every bit of his will at times not to throw himself to the ground and lick it clean.

Knowing it a possibility that he would be led to trial, or to the block, dizzy with hunger, he prepared a speech and recited it endlessly in his mind. It gave him something to occupy himself with, it strengthened the courage of his conviction for this dreadful task, and it assured him that he would be able to deliver something before he was finally silenced.

Faramir almost hoped it would be soon. The longer Denethor held the Ring, the more he mastered its power, diminishing any chances of a successful revolt, and the more the Ring mastered him, leading him further into suspicion and ruthlessness. 

This was the entire reason behind his haste to be captured. He'd played on Denethor's insecurities, trying to provoke him into reacting as drastically as possible to as small a threat as possible, in hopes of shocking those who might have a chance to resist into realizing what the Steward was becoming.

Sitting here alone and yet not alone, he had no notion to what degree his plan had succeeded in its intended shock value. He knew only that the part of him that still harbored a flicker of hope that Denethor would prove him wrong, had died a sad death the day he was led into solitary confinement.

There was no sign of Boromir, and Faramir tried, with some success, not to think of him.

* * *

Unknown to his brother, Boromir was posted in south Gondor, cursing his delay. He'd thought himself so clever, downplaying his interest in Faramir, but now he feared he'd only brought his brother to the Steward's attention and then left him at his mercy. Unforgivable, to forget for a moment that Denethor would always be one step ahead.

He was one step ahead even when Boromir at last was summoned back to Minas Tirith.

The Steward didn't make it easy for Boromir to visit his brother. but Boromir suspected that was part of the game now. He wielded bluffs and threats against the guards, and distractions and bribes when those didn't work. He had only the slightest of indirect assurances that his father would look the other way without officially condoning these visits, but he would take any risk for a few minutes alone--"alone", for he never deluded himself that Denethor wasn't somehow watching--with his brother.

Faramir looked worse, but not overtly in distress, and he could conceal his thoughts from Boromir when he wished. Boromir was left looking for any small telltale signs that might give him away.

He allowed himself to be relieved that Faramir tucked the food away and waited until after the visit to eat it, but it tore at his heart the way that Faramir, when Boromir reached through the bars in the small window, would lean his head briefly against his brother's arm. He wished he could think of something reassuring to say that wasn't a lie.

"I'll come back," he always whispered, never knowing if it was true.

He'd leave in pity and pain, but by the time he was to the second flight of stairs back to the halls of his daily life, he'd shock himself with the sheer depth of his fury. Faramir had brought this on himself. Even if he thought his punishment undeserved, or disproportionate, what in the world had led him to believe it was unexpected? Yes, there had always been strife between him and Denethor, beginning when Faramir first developed political views of his own. Yes, he'd spoken his mind when it wasn't wise, and he was firm in his opinions. But if there was one thing Boromir thought he could count on, it was Faramir's prudence. The reckless one was Boromir. If even he could learn circumspection, if even he could learn to tell his father what he wanted to hear in order to get what he, Boromir, wanted, how did Faramir come to such uncharacteristic foolhardiness?

He brought this on himself, and in doing so he'd forced Boromir into an impossible position. He'd betr--Boromir shied away from the word. Disappointed, then, Boromir's trust in him. Just as he couldn't have not known that Denethor wouldn't tolerate such defiance, he couldn't possibly have thought Boromir could live with himself knowing his brother was in danger. It was almost as though he'd done it on purpose.

Around the time Boromir found himself seized by a physical urge to shove Faramir against a wall and shake him, _shake him_ , he'd come back to himself, his heart pounding in his throat and his face flushed. These fits of rage were as inexplicable as they were strong, and he was too unnerved to do anything but try to forget them and shove his emotions back into place.

Faramir was his brother to protect, and Denethor his father to obey, and his own opinions about who was misguided this time didn't enter into it.

* * *

Denethor only smiled these days when everything was going according to plan. 

He'd chosen Faramir's guards carefully: not brutes without cause, but not above a little taunting of someone helpless to resist. The food deprivation was only there to give the pragmatic Boromir something concrete to work with. 

Faramir was holding up with remarkable and yet unsurprising fortitude in the face of hunger and humiliation, but Denethor dismissed those as mere distractions as easily as his son did. He saw what he was looking for: at a sound in the corridor, Faramir's face suddenly lifted in that terrible hope and fear that it might be Boromir. 

Denethor could see him fighting it, but he couldn't help himself. It was that bond between the brothers, always strongest in hardship. They saw each other infrequently, had few interests in common, quarreled from time to time, and seemed altogether like kindly disposed but indifferent brothers, until something called on them to make common cause, and then they snapped into place like a company into formation.

He knew too that Faramir expected trial or summary execution, but it did not displease Denethor to be thus underestimated. Neither suited his plans, not at the moment. It suited him to prod Boromir in predictable spots, and to watch Boromir react in predictable ways.

Boromir was like clockwork, and he did not disappoint.

* * *

Like clockwork, Boromir set out to convince his father to release Faramir. Denethor was less interested in the content of his arguments, for his own mind was already made up on the matter, and more interested in how Boromir chose to play this out.

What arguments did he think would be persuasive, and why? How would he react to disappointment? What, if anything, would he tell Faramir on the subject?

"I have no evidence," Denethor said at last, with a finality that brooked no further argument, "that you have nearly as much influence over your brother as you claim. You'll need to prove your case to me, before I deem it safe to release a self-confessed traitor."

Boromir bowed. "What would you of me? By all accounts, he's been a model prisoner, and there's little I can entice him to do that he would not also do under orders, as the terms of his imprisonment at your pleasure."

Clever, Denethor conceded, not at all displeased. _With your brother's welfare at stake, you might at long last learn the dances of politics._ As taught to him, of course, by his father. He trusted Boromir because of his very simplicity and would not like to lose what he valued so greatly, but with just a little more cunning Boromir might serve deeper purposes, and without any risk that he would outstrip Denethor's own métier.

"Nay, but let him do these things of his own free will, because you ask it of him. Bring me...the candle he uses after nightfall."

Boromir struggled for impassivity. "What shall I tell him?"

Denethor raised his eyebrows in a pretense of surprise. "You ask me? Surely if you claim you can win him over to our cause better than I can, you can manage this."

He dismissed Boromir then, waiting almost eagerly for the next move in this game.

* * *

Less eager, Boromir was in turmoil. When he'd agreed with Denethor to make Faramir depend upon him, he thought that he would be the provider of comfort, not its thief. He could see, and hate himself for seeing, how much more effective this mixed approach would be than his own, but his spirit rebelled at the thought.

Desperately he tried to reason with himself. It was true that this entire mess came of his determination to get Faramir into better conditions, whatever the price. It was true that he had argued he could put an end to Faramir's more subversive moves. But that was for Faramir's own safety, and for everyone's. Taking his brother's only light from him was for no one's good. It was control for control's sake.

"Do you think you might put out the light in your room while we talk? It's safer for us this way." Shamefacedly, Boromir added, "It's not safe for you in either case, I realize that."

 _Coward! Coward!_ his conscience shrieked. Once that candle was extinguished, the guards wouldn't light it again tonight. Yet Boromir was too craven to ask for it directly.

"Oh, Boromir." Faramir's sigh was full of pity. When he returned, his room was dark. The hall was only dimly lit by torches, and if Boromir stepped right into the recess before Faramir's door, the shadow of the wall fell on him.

Through a gap in the bars they could just touch foreheads, and in some unproven faith that in the darkness even Denethor could not see them from afar, they did.

"Once upon a time," Faramir whispered, "you didn't use to lie to me."

"Once," Boromir whispered in response, "I could tell you the truth." With Faramir's stringy hair under the caress of his fingertips, he couldn't find in him the now familiar anger at Faramir for putting them both in this position. "Can you trust me even if I lie to you?"

"I trust you." His breath on Boromir's cheek was the only sign of life from within the room.

"I'll come back."

* * *

Nightly now, when Faramir heard a sound, he had to strain his ears and wonder if his light was keeping Boromir from approaching. Only briefly did he struggle with the dilemma of wondering whether keeping Boromir away was the wiser choice, and soon he was only rationalizing extinguishing it early each evening. What need for a light anyway, for a prisoner who could not so much as read? The candle was only a friendly, human thing, unlike the torch sometimes held aloft by a guard staring at him while he slept.

He didn't really need it, he told himself, though Boromir's visits were still few and far between. They were common enough that he thought the Steward must be silently condoning them, or they would have been stopped by now, but just infrequent enough that he still had to wonder. Perhaps Boromir did have just enough of his father's trust to deceive him. Perhaps he had to lie the way he now learned to lie to Faramir, and Denethor inquired no further, not suspecting his trustworthy son enough.

Boromir the Bold. Sneaking about in the darkness, fearing to be caught. And Faramir the Wise? Protégé of the Grey Wizard, captive within weeks in a reckless plan of his own making.

How the fates did toy with them.

At length, Faramir surrendered his candle to his guards, saying he no longer required it. Denethor smiled.

* * *

A few more such demonstrations, and Boromir had the Steward's leave, official now, to bring Faramir into his personal custody, provided with appropriate guarantees of his good behavior. 

He appeared before Faramir's door with the news.

"It's not ideal," Boromir told him. He seemed oddly nervous, and dark circles rimmed his eyes. What was Denethor having him do that left him showing the effects of sleepless nights? "But you will eat, and it won't be gruel," he said with more conviction.

 _The Steward now masters and is mastered by the powers of Sauron's One Ring,_ and Gondor has thrown off the threat of Mordor only to face a still greater threat within, and Boromir thinks it matters what I eat?

Faramir would have erupted in exasperation, but memories of growing up with Boromir were never far from the surface of his mind, and they came to the fore now. 

Boromir, holding his hand at their mother's funeral. Boromir, acting as a buffer between him and their father until Faramir was old enough to stand on his own two feet. Boromir, smuggling him food when he was sent hungry from the table. Boromir, making promises a child could never have kept, not when their world was ruled by the inscrutable motives of adults. Faramir had learned not to take the promises literally, but only in the spirit in which they were intended--reassurance that no matter what life threw at them, he wouldn't leave Faramir to face it alone. Even if there were nothing he could do.

"You're desperate for something you can control, aren't you?" Faramir said, suddenly understanding.

Boromir stiffened as if Faramir had touched on something he wished to hide, but Faramir knew what that meant. Already Denethor was giving orders that Boromir didn't, couldn't, agree with, and Boromir was following them loyally. Rationalizing past his discomfort that his father knew what he was doing, that he was justified. But that door to questioning the Steward was open just a crack.

What Faramir could do even if the door opened wide, he couldn't tell. Denethor could have them both imprisoned or killed before any revolt could so much as be gotten off the ground. Others less under his direct supervision would have a greater chance of success. That was why he'd so quickly thrown away his freedom--it had meant little with the Steward breathing down his neck. Mithrandir, though, would advise Faramir never to give up hope, and that the love between two brothers might yet, unlikely though it seemed, prove stronger than suspicion or lust for power.

 _O Mithrandir_ , Faramir lamented. _Would that you were here in truth. You of all people would not have let this come to pass. Still, I will take your counsel, ungrateful though I think it to involve my brother in double dealings._

"This wasn't the plan," Faramir said. "Yours, his, or mine. But I will come."

* * *

Faramir came surprisingly docilely, Boromir's hand tight around his wrist, and Boromir began to hope that this would not be as difficult as he feared. Sooner or later he knew Faramir would thank him for this; he could only pray it would be soon.

His hopes were dashed the moment he closed the door to his private suite.

"Very well, then," Faramir opened the discussion. "What are the rules?"

Boromir flinched a little. Faramir's steady gaze was proving harder to meet than their father's, which inspired only fear. "For your own protection," he began, trying to ease the way. 

Faramir looked unimpressed, and Boromir exploded. "I'm doing the best I can! I never asked for this strife between you and our father, not in these several weeks and not for these many years. I navigate the waters you've brought me to with the tools I have."

"I'm willing to do this your way," Faramir told him. "But you can't close your eyes to the truth and pretend I'm not still a prisoner."

Involuntarily, Boromir closed his eyes literally then, trying to come to grips with what he'd never wanted. When he opened them, looking for mercy, Faramir was kind but still implacable. He must be made of sterner stuff than Boromir. Faramir might be able endure his own imprisonment and find comfort in his principles, but leaving his brother to his fate was beyond Boromir's power.

"What was I supposed to do?" demanded Boromir. "I couldn't leave you there. I couldn't live with that."

"Can you live with everything you've done?" 

On Denethor's lips that question would have been a whiplash; on Faramir's, it was as though he guessed at and sympathized with Boromir's recent dilemmas. 

"I-I have to, yes. You drew your line in the sand, and I drew mine. Will you challenge me in this?"

Faramir nodded to himself, as though confirming something. "I said I would do this your way. What are the rules?"

For now, Boromir decided he could ask for no more than reluctant cooperation. Faramir would see the benefits soon enough. "You're to remain in these rooms for the time being, but you may make full use of them: food, bed, fire, washtub, books, ink and paper...ask me if you have need of anything. And officially," he prodded gently, "you're not a prisoner."

"Oh yes," said Faramir, with a world of meaning in three ironic words. "Officially."

"Ask me if you have need of anything," Boromir repeated. "I must go now, for I have duties, but I will return in time for us to take our evening meal in here."

Before leaving, Boromir paused and looked as deep into Faramir's eyes as he could. "Stay safe, little brother? I'll navigate."

"As safe as any of us can be," Faramir answered. It did not escape Boromir's notice that he avoided making a promise he didn't feel he could keep.

"How can you be so calm?" he cried suddenly. Boromir himself was on edge, every ounce of his fighter spirit screaming for an outlet in action. He knew enough to dread what was to come, even if Faramir remained unaware of Denethor's plans for him.

"I haven't the luxury to be aught else. Be well, brother." For a moment Faramir looked almost as Boromir remembered him. "Hope still remains to us."

Despondent, Boromir shook his head and took his leave.

The day dragged on for Boromir until the promised evening meal, for he was on tenterhooks, though he couldn't decide what he feared. Surely Faramir would not violate parole if it meant risking his brother too. He didn't see how Faramir could prefer that room that had been little more than a cell to Boromir's alternative, or blame Boromir for removing him. He could, Boromir had to admit, resent his brother for not siding with him in the first place.

Well, Boromir could bear some resentment of his own.

"Did you have to get caught?" he asked Faramir when the servants had left. They were permitted in these rooms now only when Boromir was present, so there had been a fair amount of tidying up to do while the food was brought in and they began to eat. One waited outside now, opposite a thick door, waiting to be summoned.

A ghost of a smile, the first in months, crossed Faramir's face. "Oh, Boromir. What manner of a question in all of Arda is that? I hardly know where to start. With the notion that I could possibly hide such doings for very long from a man like the Lord Denethor? Or with the implication that you wish that my secret plotting had gone on undetected longer, and thereby the more successful?"

Boromir scowled. Faramir could talk circles around him from the day he learned to string a sentence together. "Did you have to be so blatant, then? Flaunting it in his face?"

"I did as it was given to me to do." Faramir's eyes, grey or brown or blue with the changing of the light, were probing Boromir. Gentler than Denethor, but withal finding deeper corners. "As, I believe, do you do as your heart bids."

 _No,_ Boromir lamented. _No, that power was taken from me long ago._

Afterward, they dressed for bed without thinking about it, but then there was some hesitation over sleeping arrangements.

"The couch will do. We could have a cot brought in tomorrow," Faramir suggested. He refrained, for which Boromir was thankful, from offering to sleep on the floor with a pointed reminder of its familiarity since the furnishings were removed from his prison.

"The bed will hold two," Boromir argued, trying to hide how discomfited he was. He wanted only to make life easier on Faramir, and Faramir seemed determined to make things as difficult as possible. 

All that he'd done to make this happen was justified only if Faramir was safe as a result. Faramir _had_ to let Boromir protect him.

After a mutually awkward pause, Faramir joined him. Boromir couldn't tell what he was thinking. In olden days there would have been jests about cold feet and blanket-stealing, but now it was nearly as though they were strangers.

"Do you hate me?" Boromir whispered, so softly as to leave it to chance whether his words would be heard at all.

A few moments passed; then, in the dark, a hand squeezed his.


	2. Chapter 2

Late one evening, Faramir stayed at the writing desk after Boromir had turned in for the night.

"If you're coming to bed later than I am, would you take the couch?" The words were out of Boromir's mouth before he knew why he said them. A light sleeper he might be after many years in an armed camp, quick to jump to the alarm, but his brother climbing in beside him at home shouldn't disturb him overmuch. Still, he waited to hear how Faramir would respond.

"Is that a rule?" Faramir inquired mildly. The light scratch of his nib against the paper continued.

"A request." Boromir tried to answer in kind, when he was flushing dark with anger at Faramir's constant needling reminders of their relative statuses. Petty and ungrateful!

"I'll remember," Faramir promised. He turned a page.

With that, Boromir had to be content, not even sure what he wanted. He flopped over in bed, determined to sleep and forget this.

* * *

Listening to Boromir toss and turn was small compensation for Faramir's lost concentration. He turned to scanning meter, wanting mindless work he could do while his thoughts raced.

How compliant did he have to be to win Boromir's unthinking trust? How compliant could he be before he became what he pretended? Then, too, if he showed no spine at all, would Boromir cease to take him seriously? Once his brother had looked to him as an advisor, but Faramir dreaded losing that old partnership to roles of victim and protector.

Still, there was something to be said for the strategic advantage of sharing a bed. Boromir might not guard his tongue as closely in this room as he would outside of it, but Faramir was not so sure he wasn't still holding back. Whispering across the bed with all the lights out was more than a bittersweet reprisal of a more innocent time as boys in defiance of the adults. It was the only place Faramir felt they might truly be sure of speaking privately, and it might be they would someday have need of such privacy, if their words turned to defiance of weightier matters than children's bedtime.

* * *

Every night after that, Faramir turned in early contrary to his natural practice, and Boromir did not know whence his relief. He couldn't explain even to himself why he wanted his brother within arm's reach, save that it quieted some faint uneasiness at the thought of separation. If Faramir was here, nothing could happen to him except that Boromir knew of it first. He did not know what to fear if Denethor should despatch him again from the city, and lately a whisper had begun to make itself felt in his heart. A whisper that spoke of Faramir left alone all day in Boromir's chambers, and the faintest hint of the Steward's presence when Boromir returned of evenings. Faramir, though, deflected his questions so skilfully that Boromir could not be sure if he was imagining things. Trying to outwit his brother or his father was a lost cause.

 _Keep him here. Keep him safe_ , was Boromir's mantra when he felt the waters closing over his head.

* * *

It was the elder brother, not the younger, who woke with nightmares. Still muzzy with sleep, he pulled Faramir closer one night, to calm the frantic beating of his heart and remind himself that he had not failed, that his brother was still here. Still safe. Dreaming his own dreams in the deepest part of the night, Faramir came without resistance. His body was warm, heavy, and pliant, and he moved trustingly with Boromir's tugs, not even coming awake.

Waking in the morning in the middle of the bed, they could not remember how they'd gotten there, but they disentangled and rose without comment. Boromir was a wild sleeper by nature, and no doubt it was only a matter of time before he ended up half atop anyone who slept too near him.

It didn't happen again for a few nights, and then it did. Soon Faramir knew his part, and he moved closer without being asked, until his brother's breathing fell back into the discordant cadences of sleep.

* * *

"He does as I tell him," Boromir reported. "I've met with no resistance at all." It wasn't a lie, Boromir told himself. Faramir's guardedness toward his brother was due to his confinement and the fact that he still saw Boromir as his jailer as much as his rescuer. Let him have more freedom, and all that constraint between them would vanish. "My thought was that he could be a useful tool, not a lapdog."

"There is still a wolf buried in there, even if you see it not. Outward obedience is nothing. You yourself pointed out when he rendered obedience to the terms of his punishment. Lack of resistance is not a sign of yielding. It is called biding one's time, and you would recognize it if you knew how to do it."

Boromir stiffened to attention at the reprimand as though at the crack of a whip. 

"He must _yield_ ," Denethor emphasized.

"He stays close to me, even at night, when he could choose not to. He needs me. He knows I'm all he has." _He always has_ , Boromir thought, and hastily he had to dissemble his flash of resentment toward their father.

* * *

"Tell me," coaxed Faramir one night, still half-asleep himself. He let his words slur a little. Boromir's guard would be lower if he weren't brought fully awake.

A questioning mumble.

"What troubles you, brother? You used to share with me your dreams."

"It's always the same. Only the details..." Boromir's voice trailed off, and Faramir made a polite hum to indicate he was listening, not wanting him to drift back into sleep yet. After a minute, Boromir resumed, one word following slowly upon another. "This time we were young children, living on the streets. The two of us." Another long pause. "I had to find a place that was dry."

"I know," Faramir crooned, "hush, now, and sleep," but what he wanted to say, with mingled pity and impatience, was, _I know. I know why you did what you did, but it's not only us. It's all of Gondor, and soon enough Middle-earth, not only we who live now, but all the ages, for the Ring confers immortality._

"Last time it was me." Faramir startled a little at Boromir's slow, thickened voice, coming unexpected out of the darkness. He'd thought he was alone again with his thoughts. "I whipped you until you coughed blood."

The night held no chance of further sleep for Faramir. He reached out a hand and laid it gently over his brother's eyes, closing them.

"You've a good heart. A strong heart." Faramir's own was beating painfully with the understanding of what he must do, caught between love of his brother and the weal of Middle-earth. "I forgive you."

* * *

Faramir started small, when he began coaxing political details and personal confidences out of Boromir. He first constructed questions to which he knew or guessed the answer, and knowing or guessing, expected that Boromir could justify answering. For if Boromir began by forming a habit of refusing to answer Faramir's questions, suspicion rather than trust would build.

"I know that I am no longer privy to matters of state," Faramir opened his first gambit. "But in the broadest of terms, there is one thing I would know. When I last knew how the contest with Mordor went, we had the upper hand. I would know if that is still the case, if our people are still safe from this threat."

Boromir opened his mouth to share everything with his brother, and then he closed it again.

Faramir waited. If the answer were no, he knew that as an accused traitor he would not have been told. But since the answer was yes, which he judged by the fact that Captain Boromir could be spared from the field for so long, he could trust Boromir to hear in his question what he wanted to hear: that Faramir, misguided or not, had only Gondor's best interests in mind.

"I do not love war," Faramir pressed. "I would not have gone, save that I loved our people more."

Reluctant but compelled to be honest, Boromir nodded. "I believe you. Father does not, though, you know."

Faramir knew. All those many years, his distaste for war had been taken as a sign of insufficient patriotism, rather than its greatest testament. When it came to opposing the use of the Ring, Denethor accused him of wishing the war to drag on, or worse, for Gondor to lose.

"You fought long enough that you deserve to hear this. Sauron is being hunted down. The lands east of the River have been reclaimed. The fight goes well in the south. We are safe." Boromir stopped. "I can tell you no more."

"That was all I needed," Faramir assured him, "and I thank you for it." 

Boromir's first confidence had been easier to win than he'd expected. The experience gave Faramir hope for a second.

* * *

A few mornings later, at the sound of the door opening and a familiar bootstamp, Faramir glanced up from his book. "Did I miss you coming in last night?" He knew perfectly well he hadn't, but he continued his practice of asking Boromir as many questions as he felt he could answer, in hopes of making a habit of it.

Boromir's smile was tight, and when he spoke, his voice was confrontational. "I'm not allowed to get drunk these days, for fear you might get state secrets out of me. So I spent the night in a tavern. He can't argue with that."

Faramir sighed. "I am quite the inconvenience to you."

If he was expecting reassurance from Boromir, he got instead an explosion. "Yes! And don't tell me you didn't ask me to bring you here. You know I had no choice. You left me with no choice. It was your own efforts and choice that landed you there in the first place."

It took all Faramir's strength of will not to justify himself. With a ferocious effort, he drove the anger from his eyes and let his affection show. He didn't consider it deception: both the anger and the affection were real. "I always was." His voice held only fond reminiscence, slightly self-deprecating. "You'd let me tag along as a child where I'd never be allowed on my own, even if it meant slowing down for me."

Boromir's anger broke then. Pain, tenderness, regret, and utter lostness at the situation he found himself in, played across his face in short succession. He reached out to fondle his brother's hair, but his hand fell back before his fingers had more than brushed Faramir's forehead. "I don't know why I lash out at you so. I just-" He trailed off, and as always, Faramir couldn't tell if it was difficulty finding the words or fear of being overheard that impeded him.

Almost immediately after he wondered this, the door opened to admit a chambermaid, come to build up the fire and tidy the room. Faramir smiled and greeted her pleasantly, as he did all the servants, but made it clear he expected no response. His ambiguous status made everyone nervous, and no one wanted to cross Denethor's will.

While she performed her duties and Faramir read quietly in a chair, Boromir performed his morning ablutions in silence, or at least with no word to his brother. On his way out, though, he paused and bade Faramir farewell. 

"I'll see you this evening." As he opened the door, Boromir tried to jest, "At least you have the luxury of time with your books," but when Faramir refused to play along, he sighed heavily and let the door fall shut behind him with an echoing bang.

Faramir seethed once he was alone in the room. Some time passed before he was calm enough to reflect on his own roiling emotions. 

He tried to remind himself of what he'd sought to remind Boromir: that Boromir had been dependably kind. That Boromir was trying to make the best of an impossible situation. That Boromir had been in an impossible situation all his life.

He took those reminders and set them in the balance to weigh against his complaints. Boromir's failure to understand what Faramir was trying to accomplish. His high-handed intervention, not even granting Faramir the autonomy to set his own life lightly against the well-being of Gondor. The longer Faramir remained in this room, a prisoner in all but name, the less Boromir took him seriously.

The obvious conclusion was that he needed to get out of this room. To do that, though, they would need the Steward's leave. Boromir could be lulled by compliant behavior and mild words, but Denethor, even before he came into possession of the Ring, had the gift of perceiving motives and secret thoughts. Faramir's ability to wipe his face clear of emotion like a slate had been learned under duress, and from Denethor's own example.

To deceive the Steward, Faramir would have to adopt a camouflage so deep he risked not being able to shed it. He would have to believe his own deceptions, and he questioned whether he possessed the arrogance to expect that he'd be able to break free at the first opportunity.

A forgotten book sat open in his lap, while he pondered these things.

* * *

The days continued, filled with the friction of roommates with no respite from each other's company, or from a situation that made them both uneasy. Matters were not helped by the constant sense of being watched. On edge and neither knowing quite what to do with the tension, they resorted for a time to ignoring each other during the evenings, only to climb into bed and throw off their masks, as it were. Darkness and privacy created a polarizing effect so strong that it took by surprise even Faramir, who had aimed to create this very effect.

They slept close, now not merely sharing a bed like comrades, but like drowning sailors clinging to a rope. If he reached out his arm, Faramir's hand would encounter Boromir's head, where it would alight momentarily in a wordless benediction before falling asleep, and if Boromir's nightmares struck, physical reassurance that Faramir still lived was not far to seek.

"I miss Father." Faramir emerged fully awake out of a sound sleep, not sure if he'd dreamed those words or not. Tentatively, he patted about the bed, and his hand closed on Boromir's wrist.

"He was never-but he...not kind, but...warm. Sometimes." Faramir was sure Boromir didn't know what he was saying, or he would never allow these words to cross his lips. He wondered if Boromir's mind was fighting free of the constraints placed on it during the day, letting him talk where he could not be held responsible. Or perhaps Boromir had always been prone to talking in his sleep from time to time. The few occasions on which they'd shared a bed or even a tent before this had been too widely spaced for him to know. Then too, in those days Faramir had been less sensitive in his sleep to his brother, not yet conditioned to come awake at a single sound.

"I shouldn't be telling you this." Faramir hastened to make a reassuring noise, but Boromir continued, mumbling, "Not fair to you."

He sank back into sleep, leaving Faramir once again lying awake, aching at Boromir's unexpected sensitivity. With all the things in Boromir's world that weren't fair, he still worried about not making anything harder on Faramir.

Paradoxically, it was this act of kindness that decided Faramir on his ruthless course. _I have to. One of us must look with a long eye._ Boromir would get him out of here if he could, but that meant convincing the Steward. The Lord Denethor would have to penetrate as deeply as he could into both his sons' minds and find nothing but utter submission on Faramir's part, with no reason to believe it was a trick.

It might even so not be enough, but Faramir chose to believe that the allowances made by Denethor so far meant that he would prefer obedience to condemning one of his sons. Perhaps such an outcome would showcase his power to even greater effect.

The thought gave Faramir pause. He didn't want to undermine his own cause, but he was beginning to suspect that Denethor had outmaneuvered him, keeping him out of sight and soon to be out of mind, rather than subject him to a trial or execution with all its public implications. Whether he intended it or no, he had neutralized the threat Faramir planned without allowing his hand to be forced.

Faramir's choices, then, were to admit to defeat, or to throw the dice again on a gamble of higher stakes. Beside him, Boromir snored away in oblivion, all unknowing of what lay in store for him.

Not altogether unknowing, Faramir reminded himself. Certainly he'd done everything in his power to get them this far. But just as surely, he had no notion of the amount of deceit that must go into this, nor must he be allowed to guess at it.

He was left with all the responsibility of not being alone, and none of the relief. Except for one thing.

"You are so stubborn," he said to Boromir in the morning, immediately upon waking.

Boromir looked at him. "I'm not leaving you to your own devices."

"I apologize for thinking otherwise." It was a good a start on his journey toward perfect outward submission.


	3. Chapter 3

Boromir made his way up the halls to the Steward's private study. In olden days, he and his father worked well together: Denethor indefatigable in political maneuvering and master of strategies, and Boromir his right arm, mighty in the field. Formal their relationship might be, but it was often comfortable, and Boromir could bask in the approval of his father's eyes even when his mouth did not smile.

Now, though, not only did Faramir cast a long shadow between them, but Denethor's grey eyes were become like iron, letting nothing show. Their meetings were brusque, to the point, and Boromir lingered no longer than he must. He did not dread them--quite.

He never knew how to respond to the probing questions about his brother, but then he came to realize it didn't matter. He answered honestly and stiffly, volunteering no information, and Denethor believed what he wanted to believe.

Then he would return to his own rooms, fiercely protective with nothing he could guard against. Faramir would come and sit beside him, quiet, compliant, and comforting. He soothed Boromir's fears not by any word, but by his lack of resistance. That puzzling aloofness was vanished, replaced by the old trust and openness. It was hard to remember that anything had changed, except that Faramir was allowed out of Boromir's chambers only with supervision. When they were alone together, things were easier between them than ever before.

But Denethor, it seemed, was having none of it.

"So quickly you forget when he was in custody: the unyielding pride, the scorn for hardships, and the self-willed behavior that landed him there in the first place."

Boromir began to protest, "He has been-"

"You have given me no reason to believe that you have broken him to you."

"What more do you want as evidence?" Boromir asked, frustrated. "You can see into his mind; what do you read there?"

Denethor narrowed his eyes. Officially, he had had no contact with his younger son since giving the order to have him taken into custody.

In possibly the greatest act of courage that had ever been asked of Boromir, he lifted his gaze to meet his father's, saying nothing during a long, pregnant pause.

_I don't believe you._

At the last possible moment, Boromir said in a steady voice that betrayed nothing of what had passed between them, "You can read both of us from afar. You always have."

Denethor tightened his lips against whatever secrets he was holding, and responded only to Boromir's words. "He remains undismayed by captivity. I would not have you suffer unduly when he steels himself to betray you."

Against that show of concern Boromir had no defenses. His agony was all the greater because he could not believe his father's love for him was not genuine, any more than he could believe Faramir would betray him.

"It is time to take matters out of your hand," he continued. "You have done all you can do. If it has been enough, that will be for him to prove publicly. You are dismissed," the Steward snapped, when Boromir would have spoken.

He tolerated not the slightest disobedience these days, and Boromir choked--literally choked--on the questions erupting from him. Breathing hard to keep himself under control, Boromir bowed and took his leave.

Still reeling from the shock, he brought word to his brother that evening. He meant to wait until they were safe in the darkness and whispers of bed, but he could not withhold his news through dinner. The announcement that had been proclaimed throughout the City called for a trial before the elders of the realm was, but there was no question in anyone's mind who held the reins, or whose the final decision would be.

Faramir met the news with his usual aplomb. "I've expected this since the beginning." Only the delay had come as a surprise, and it was clearly a tactic on the Steward's part, whose purpose he could only dimly discern.

"But I thought we were past it!" Boromir burst out. "Why now? To clear your name?" he dared to hope.

"If you think my name is his primary concern, among all the affairs of state," Faramir answered cynically.

"What, then? You haven't done anything to cross him--" Boromir looked at him sharply. "Have you?"

Faramir shrugged. "In his mind, I may have."

"Faramir-!" Boromir's cry was despairing, but he knew as well as his brother how the Lord Denethor could pounce on the tiniest offense. It was impossible to know whom to fault here.

"He'll be fair," Boromir reassured himself as much as Faramir.

"He'll do what he believes to be meet and in the best interests of Gondor," Faramir agreed.

A choked sound meant that Boromir had read into those words the same meaning that Faramir had. They'd grown up with him, after all.

Abruptly, Boromir tore away to pace the carpet of his sitting room. Faramir looked on from his chair with sympathy, but made no move to rise.

"I think you were wrong. I think taking the Ring was the only thing he could do, and that it's paid off. But..."

Faramir waited to hear him say that he thought Denethor had overreacted.

"But thinking you were wrong has never meant I abandoned you before."

Faramir let out the breath he'd been holding. Half a glass.

* * *

It was the hardest decision Boromir ever made. He wrestled with it night and day. Even casting down the bridge at Osgiliath--oh, that had been hard, and the splashes and drowning cries of his falling men haunted him to this day--was a decision made in a moment that had not called for such agonizing.

First he thought he must decide one way; then, the other. He could not hold one fixed conclusion in his mind, yet he knew the moment of decision would soon be upon him. His eyes were set in deep pockets of shadow, and his face grew gaunter with each passing week.

he made his decision, as he made most such decisions, in the middle of the night. Faramir lay curled up trustingly on the other side of the bed, and Boromir, watching over his sleep, had not had a wink. Boromir couldn't, in the end, believe that Faramir could or would harm the Steward, even in open rebellion. No one could stand against Denethor bearing the One Ring.

It was like a knife wound to admit it, but nothing in his life gave him reason to believe the reverse. If provoked, and Boromir had to admit Denethor was amply provoked, he would make an example of Faramir to all who would consider flouting his authority.

If he wanted to protect them both, then, there was only one move open to him on this board.

* * *

"I've been keeping my options open," Boromir said the next morning, before they had done more than sit up in bed. "I can get you out of the city before your trial."

Faramir met his eyes, his heart breaking with love and fear. "He'll know," he breathed.

Boromir nodded his agreement, fear and determination on his own face. There was no getting around it. "I was in trouble often as a child," he jested, trying to put a light face on it.

"You're not a child," Faramir reminded him, "and this is treason."

Again Boromir nodded, wordless.

"I-" Faramir hesitated. "I meant it," he said, surprising himself. "I would not implicate you." After all his plans to regain his freedom, and his assumption of a mask of forgoing all his wishes to secure Boromir's safety, he had fallen prey to what he most feared: a faltering of his will at the last moment. When all that he had sought was offered him and he moved to turn it down...was this weakness, or the only moral course of action? "To flee, and to leave you to suffer the consequences? 'Twould be the worse kind of cowardice, and to you of all people." He reached out to squeeze his brother's hand.

For a moment, Boromir allowed himself to hope. Faramir would remain, safe and cooperative, Denethor would believe him, and Boromir would not be torn. But deep in his belly was a hard knot of fear that no hope could touch.

"It's too late for that," Boromir warned him. "I am implicated already, and if there's any consequence worse than the outcome of this trial-"

"You think he will?"

"I can't be sure. And so long as I can't be sure...Faramir, go. Don't make this any harder than it is." Belying his words, Boromir's hand held Faramir's tight.

"You think this could be harder?" Faramir half-laughed, half-choked. "How can you bring yourself to carry it out at all?"

"I told you once that I had drawn my line in the sand?" Boromir fixed his brother with an unwavering gaze. "This is it: I can cross no further."

Faramir bowed his head to the inevitable. He would go because it gave him the greatest chance of success; Boromir would let him go because he didn't believe in any possibility of success, only Faramir's safety. From across a great divide they gazed at each other, as they so often had--still brothers, united in spite of everything.

"If we're to do this, it must be now." Boromir's face was an open book to his father, and he could not hope to keep a secret for longer than it took to execute this plan. By the time the Lord Denethor saw him next, their guilt would be plain, and Faramir must be well away by then. "He's been visiting you, unseen, has he not?"

Faramir inclined his head, surprised that Boromir had picked up on this.

"Then there is no time to spare."

 _I am not worthy._ Boromir had little of the gift of seeing into the thoughts of other minds, but he heard those words as clearly as if Faramir had said them aloud.

"It's not anything you've done," he muttered into a final, brief embrace. "It's only who you are--brother."

* * *

Denethor did not smile when the news of his son's rebellion reached him, yet he had a plan for this as well.

Faramir's first treason, little more than whispering, had been too insignificant to justify any severe public retribution. Disappearance was the more effective solution. Then, though Denethor had never believed his repentance was heartfelt, there had been the chance that fear for Boromir would tie Faramir's hands. Since he had shown himself callous even to the fate of his putatively beloved brother, disappointing Denethor deeply, there was no recourse to be had but to separate them. With Faramir now in open rebellion, public opinion and the consent of the council elders should not be difficult to win over.

At the next council meeting, Denethor spoke at some length of second chances, ingratitude, and betrayal. By the end of his oration--and Denethor was a master of wordcraft--most heads around the table were nodding, however reluctantly. Boromir, in the chair on the Steward's right hand, sat frozen. His face was a mask of mute horror, though he spoke no word of objection.

Denethor was not concerned. Boromir was loyal, however tainted. Let him be free of his brother's baneful influence, and he would be Denethor's once more, utterly his.

* * *

Faramir stood poised at the mouth of a cave, a hunted man. A circle of desperate outlaws were gathered about him, waiting for their leader to give the word.

With his farsight, he could just see his brother, pacing the battlements of Minas Tirith. Boromir would come to hate either his father or his brother, Faramir knew, or tear himself apart in the struggle not to.

Eyes fixed on a scene no one else could see, Faramir quietly gave the word.


End file.
